


Tales from Blackrock

by MindfulWrath



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blackrock Chronicles, F/M, Fluff without Plot, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of fluffy Zoethian short stories. No angst, no smut, just good honest fluff. Updated as ideas occur to me.</p><p>(These don't belong to any pre-existing timeline. If you feel like breaking your heart you could apply them to one, but they're mainly meant to just be feel-good shippy bits of dryer lint.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the heyday of the Tekkit village, a chance encounter begins an unlikely friendship.

He stood with his back to the village and his face to the rising night. The wind off of the sea whipped his scarf out behind him, tousled his hair and filled his ears with arcane voices, so long unheard that their languages were all forgotten.

He must have looked really _cool._ It was such a pity that nobody was there to see him.

"Um?"

There were times when Rythian really _liked_ wearing the mask. It meant he didn't have to waste time wiping the smile off his face before looking over his shoulder.

She stood a few yards behind him, wringing her hands. The same wind that was doing interesting things to his scarf was pushing bright red hair all over her face, which she kept having to push back out. She was smiling.

"Hello," he said.

"Oh! Hi! Good, you're not a statue—only you were standing very still, and I wondered if maybe Lalna had put a statue in, because it's a very good place for a statue—or maybe a lighthouse, yeah, that's better. Are you a lighthouse? Only you are glowing a bit."

Rythian's own hand betrayed him by reaching up to touch the corner of his eye. He quickly clasped both hands behind his back so neither of them could pull that kind of stunt again.

"No, I'm . . . not a lighthouse," he said, and cleared his throat. "I am Rythian."

"Oh. Hi Rythian, I'm Zoey! It's great to meet you. Do you live in the village? I do. I live in a giant mushroom. His name's Barry, you've probably seen him, he's hard to miss."

"I—yes, I have seen it. You—you live _in. . . ?"_

"Mm! It's very cosy. But _do_ you live in the village? Wait, I bet I can work it out. You live in that big evil wizard tower, don't you."

"It's not evil," Rythian said, for the millionth time, with some conviction. He collected himself. "But yes, that is where I live."

"I knew it! Great, well, it was fantastic meeting you, but I do have to take care of the mushrooms, they're fomenting dissent and I have to mediate."

Rythian blinked at her. "Er . . . what?"

"Don't worry about it, it's not super-important. I've got it under control anyway. I'll leave you to your brooding, I just need to take the cliff down."

"My—I wasn't—" He stopped, narrowing his eyes. "What do you mean, _take the cliff down?"_

"I'm really glad you asked. Can I just say I'm super glad you asked?"

She strode up to the cliff edge and adjusted the straps of a silver backpack.

"Um," said Rythian, backing away slowly.

"It was really good meeting you, Rythian! I'll see you later!"

And she jumped.

He lunged for her, mostly on instinct, and his fingers just barely brushed her sleeve as she went over the edge. He fell flat, one arm dangling over the edge of the cliff.

Zoey's jetpack caught, a shrinking spark against the dark sand far below. Over its sputtering roar, he could just make out the sound of her laughter.

Rythian hung his head and let out a breath into the cool dirt. Unsteady, he picked himself up and brushed himself off.

"Mortals are all _crazy,"_ he muttered to himself, shaking his head and turning his back on the cliff and the rising night, and had to shade his eyes against the golden light of the sunset.

His scarf, whipped by the strong ocean breeze, hit him squarely in the face.

He was really glad that no one was around to see it.

 


	2. Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the construction of Blackrock, persistent rain brings work to a halt.

It had been raining for three days straight. Rythian was curled up against the power-flower (the warmest place in the half-finished base), his hair plastered to his head, looking for all the world like a drenched kitten.

Zoey came over and held a hand over his head. He looked up.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm an umbrella!" she answered, grinning at him.

"That's, um, nice," said Rythian. "I would prefer a roof, though."

"We'll get there," Zoey promised. "It's hard to work in the rain. In the meantime, I'm an umbrella!"

He rubbed his face with a hand, pushed the wet hair back off his forehead.

"It's not working very well, unfortunately," he said.

Zoey added her other hand to the effort. Rythian put his face in his hands and folded over, his shoulders shaking.

"Later on,  _ you _ can be  _ my _ umbrella," she said. "I think you'd be better at it, anyway. You've sort of got the shape for it."

He glared at her. "What's  _ that _ supposed to mean?" he demanded.

"You sort of look like an umbrella," she said, gesturing to all of him, then hurriedly put her hand back in its place over his head. "Oops, sorry."

_ "Zoey," _ he began, and then sighed, shaking his head. "You don't have to be my umbrella. You can just sit down."

"I kind of like being an umbrella," she said. "Makes me feel useful."

"It's—but you're not—" He gave up. "Whatever makes you happy, I guess."

"It's not like there's anything  _ else _ to do," she pointed out. "Other than sit around looking miserable 'cause it won't stop raining."

"I am  _ not—looking miserable, _ I just—that's just my face!"

She grinned at him. "It'd help if I could actually  _ see _ your face. You have sad droopy eyes, it makes you look sad all the time."

"I have very  _ pretty _ eyes, thank you very much," Rythian sniffed, folding his arms.

Zoey considered him.

"Yeah, you really do, don't you," she said.

The eyes in question went very wide, and he cleared his throat. It was difficult to tell, in the dim light, but Zoey was pretty sure he was blushing.

"Well—yes. Thank you. Same—same to you. I guess." He cleared his throat again. "Are you  _ sure _ you don't want to sit down? I could—I mean, the cloak is . . . kind of water proof, and we could, maybe, both fit under it—if that's something you wanted, I understand if you might not exactly want to . . .  _ be, _ that close. Um. To me, I mean, I don't really know what your—your personal space requirements are like—"

Zoey dropped down next to him and leaned back against the nearest energy collector. It was warm, and humming slightly.

"My feet were getting tired anyway," she said. "Ooh, this is really  _ warm, _ now I get why you snuggle up with it all the time. I thought you were just being weird."

"I do not  _ snuggle," _ Rythian muttered to himself, taking off his cloak. "I am a mage of unimaginable power, how dare you suggest that I snuggle. Here, you hold that side, I'll hold this one. . . ."

They held the cloak up over their heads. Zoey's shoulder poked out from under it, and she scooted over until she ran up against Rythian.

"You're right, this is  _ way _ better than being an umbrella," she said, carefully not paying attention to how still he was holding, as though a honeybee had just landed on him.

"It um," he said, "it has its benefits."

Zoey nudged him. "I dunno, there's this weird twiggy thing under here, it's like an umbrella or something."

He glared. "I open my house and cloak to you, I give you warm energy collectors to snuggle up with, and  _ this _ is the thanks I get?"

"No," Zoey said,  _ "this _ is."

And swiftly, she leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

"Oh," Rythian said faintly, blinking. "Er . . . fair enough."

The rain pattered on the cloak, and frogs croaked in the distance, and all was right with the world.

 


	3. That Slips Glibly Off The Tongue

Rythian was woken by the sensation of someone shaking him violently by the shoulders.

 _"It's snowing!"_ Zoey cried, her voice nearly bursting both his eardrums. He grabbed her by the wrists, mostly so she'd stop shaking him.

"Bwuh," he said articulately.

"Come on! You've got to get up! It'll get warmer later and it'll all be gone and you'll have missed it!"

"Time's it?" he mumbled, blinking. His eyes hadn't remembered how to focus yet.

"I don't know, it's probably like super early, but not  _that_ early because the sun's  _nearly_ up already, and—ooh, so I guess it's basically nighttime, and you're like, super into that nighttime darkness gothic emo stuff, so like, it's the perfect time for you to be awake!"

"I— _no,"_ he said, trying and failing to extract himself from her grasp.  _"I_ decide when is a perfect time for me to be awake,  _not_ you."

"But it's  _snowing!"_

"That is a thing that tends to happen! It will happen again! Right now I am trying to sleep because it is very early in the morning!"

She pouted at him. She had the most potent pout he'd ever seen on a person. He groaned and let his head fall back, his torso dangling in her grasp.

"Let me get my boots on," he said.

"Snow day!" she crowed, and hugged him bone-crushingly tight and ran off into some other part of the keep.

Wheezing, Rythian rolled out of bed. He retrieved his scarf and wound it around his face. He got dressed and put on the  _heavy_ boots and rooted out a pair of gloves from somewhere. There was a flurry of knocking on his door.

"What's taking so long!" Zoey demanded. "Did you get all tangled up in your scarf? Do you need help? I can probably help! I'm really good at untangling stuff, I untangle all sorts of stuff all the time! Mostly it's mushroom politics, which are like,  _suuuuuper_ tangly, but I bet I could manage scarves!"

"It's—it's fine, Zoey, I'm not tangled up in anything," Rythian called back.

"Aw," she said, sounding disappointed. "Well then hurry up, slowpoke! You're going to miss it!"

"Zoey, all the snow isn't going to be gone in the next thirty seconds."

"You don't  _know!_ Maybe Lalna or somebody's got like a—like an anti-snow machine that makes all the snow go away. Ooh, or Sjin and Sips are going to turn it into  _dirt_ because they're horrible nasty people who hate fun. We've got to stop them, Rythian! We've got to stop them from turning all the snow into dirt!"

"Nobody's doing that!"

"Yeah, mm, yeah no, they are, I can see it! I'm looking out the window! Ooh, gosh, Rythian, ooh, it's all going to dirt, you're going to miss all the snow and then you'll be even mopier!"

"I am not— _mopey!_ And there aren't any windows near you!"

"Ooh, well, okay, um, but see, I've got, like, super-vision? Mm, yeah, I can like, see through walls and stuff. So I know what's happening. Hurry  _uuuuuup,_ Rythian! Why do you always take so long for  _everything!"_

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, he got to his feet, put on one more coat, and went to the door. When he opened it, Zoey toppled backwards into the room with a yelp. He stared down at her, and she grinned up at him.

"Oh hi, Rythian!" she said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world for her to be lying on the floor of his bedroom. "Ready to go?"

"I . . . yes," he said. He offered his hand. She took it, and he gave a valiant effort to haul her back onto her feet. She nearly pulled him down on top of her, then, laughing, got up on her own.

"You're all wimpy," she said, pinching his biceps. "Poor old man Rythian. I dunno  _what_ you'd do without me to do all the heavy lifting."

 _"What_ heavy lifting?"

"This heavy lifting!" she cried, and picked him up like a sack of potatoes and threw him over her shoulder, then dashed out into the corridor and through the keep. He elbowed her in the back, demanding to be put down, and she slapped his bottom. She ran him all the way outside where, indeed, snow was falling thickly from the sky, already an inch deep on the ground. With a heave and a grunt, she tossed him into a snowy bush, where he fell in a tangle of limbs and cold white powder.

 _"Zoey,"_ he growled.

"Snow day!" she said brightly.

Rythian gathered two handfuls of snow, surreptitiously, balling them together and compressing them in his palms.

"You like your snow days, huh?" he asked. "How do you like  _this!"_

The snowball hit her squarely in the side of the head, sticking white flakes all through her hair. She shrieked and ran off, hurriedly scooping up a retaliatory projectile. Rythian darted behind the nearest tree and her shot missed him by inches.

"You're lucky Tee's not here!" she called. "He'd hit you every time!"

"Unfortunately he's cold-blooded!" Rythian retorted. "You're on your own, snow-girl!"

He poked his head out from behind the tree and threw another snowball at her. She fired back and the snowball exploded against the tree. Slivers of cold burst across his face. He sputtered, ducking back.

"I got you! I got you with that one!"

"No you didn't!"

"Yes I did!"

He was so focused on gathering his next projectile that he didn't hear the squeaky-crunch of boots approaching through the snow. Next thing he knew, a whole mass of frigid, half-melted snow was shoved down the back of his shirt, and he shrieked and flailed while Zoey laughed so hard she fell over. Rythian leapt upon her and mashed a whole handful of snow right onto her face, until, sputtering and giggling, she told him to stop. He rested his elbows on her chest and regarded her seriously.

"I win," he said.

"Mmkay, you win," she said. Her eyes lit up and she gasped. "Rythian! Rythian!"

"What?"

"We should build a  _snowman!"_


	4. Face Value

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the canon reveal of All Of The Blackrock Loose Ends, you know I had to.

There wouldn't have been a _good_ way to show her the scars, and in fact he'd sort of planned to never do it, but of all the possible ways, this was _definitely_ the worst.

_"Oh,"_ she said. "Well. _You're_ naked."

"I—you—the—Zoey— _leave!"_ he sputtered, his voice cracking on every syllable. His skin was on fire.

"Riiiiiiiight," said Zoey, still looking at him. Her cheeks were rather red. She sipped her tea. "That'd be the thing to do."

_"Zoey!"_

She pointed at him, then turned and walked out. Rythian put both hands over his face and dropped to his knees.

"Locks on the doors," he said to himself. "Why didn't I ever put locks on the doors. Why is it always _me?_ What have I ever done to deserve this?"

As usual, nobody answered. Rythian growled to himself, mostly to get the dignity of his voice back, even if all else was lost.

It could have been anything. He could have been maimed in a creeper explosion. One of the wolves could have tugged it off by accident. He could have just _gotten over himself_ and taken it off in front of her of his own accord, to eat or drink or just for the hell of it. But no. It had to be this. The universe, certainly, was getting back at him for something.

Fuming, Rythian got dressed. He'd left all his clothes folded in a neat pile in the master bathroom, _foolishly_ trusting that Zoey would knock before coming in. Another couple of minutes and it wouldn't have mattered, he would've been dry and dressed anyway, but. . . .

He put the mask on. He fiddled with it. He tugged it down over his chin, letting it rest around his neck. It didn't much matter now. She'd probably be wanting to have a good look at them anyway. Better to just leave the mask off than have her try and pull it off of him.

Rythian had to wander for a good ten minutes to find Zoey. She was out in the garden, and being out under the open sky without his mask on was nerve-wracking. Anybody could turn up and see him. Unconsciously, he kept one finger inside the cloth, prepared to pull it back on at a moment's notice.

He came and stood near Zoey, who was digging in the dirt up to her wrists, kneeling and absorbed in her work. He cleared his throat. She looked up.

"Oh, hiya Rythian," she said. "What's up?"

"What—what's. . . ." he said, thrown off balance. The breeze felt odd against his cheeks and chin.

"Mm. I was just making a new plot for sugar canes, because like, we could just duplicate it or whatever, but I like growing it and cutting it down again and stuff and we could always use more, and it like, costs stuff to duplicate and we can turn it into other stuff and—"

"Zoey," he interrupted. "Are—are you really just going to ignore this? Are you, seriously, just going to pretend that—that—that it's all fine and normal?"

She frowned at him. "You're being weird," she said. "Is this about earlier? Honestly you haven't got to be embarrassed about me seeing you naked. It's not like it's _weird,_ don't make it _weird."_

_"Zoey."_ He gestured to his face, annoyed. "Seriously?"

Her brows drew together, her lips pursed. Realization dawned on her, and Rythian sighed, already tired of this performance.

"You're not wearing your mask!" she exclaimed. "I didn't even notice! Okay, sure, that's really cool, is that going to be like, a thing now? Only yeah, you were sort of running that whole mysterious-masked-gothy thing into the ground, it was probably time for an update to your whole look. I think losing that silly mask is probably a good start, although everything else could use some doing, too, you're still all in black and—"

She rattled on about his wardrobe and aesthetic, and he could only stare at her. It occurred to him that, perhaps, this honestly wasn't a performance.

"Zoey," he said, somewhat faintly. "The . . . the scars?"

"The what?" she said. "Oh. Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything about them, I figured it was sort of rude. Y'know? But if you want to talk about them that's fine, I don't mind. I was sort of curious, but it was like, ugh, that's not the sort of thing you just _ask_ somebody, it's really not nice at all."

"I . . . don't?" Rythian guessed. "Really?"

"Okay," said Zoey. _"Anyway,_ I think you'd look good in purple, it'd really compliment, like, your eyes—wait, are your eyes still purple? Only I used to think they were blue but then they were purple and, like, maybe they're different now, hang on—"

She got up and, to his absolute horror, took his face in her hands, peering into his eyes, much too close for comfort. He rose up on his toes, whole body arched like a bow, hands locked into claws of tension. He could feel her breath on his lips. Her hands were exceptionally warm on his cheeks. Her eyes were like amber, like honey, like sunshine. . . .

"Mm, looks like they're still purple," she said. "But like, a sort of . . . glowy purple? That's neat. Doesn't it make it sort of hard to see, though?"

Rythian made a noise like _hhhhhhhheeeeehh?_ It was the best he could do. Zoey smiled at him.

"Okay," she said. She patted his cheek and let him go, flitting off towards the keep. "I bet I could make you better stuff! I'm like, a fashion designer, too, besides being an interior decorator. I can do all _sorts_ of things! Besides, anything's better than that ratty old stuff you're wearing now anyway, it looks all sad and mopey and you're not sad and mopey. Well, you're not sad and mopey _anymore,_ you were for like, ages. I'm glad you're not anymore!"

Dazed, reeling, Rythian could do little more than follow her back inside, idly wiping the dirt from his cheeks.

He did manage to stop fiddling with the mask.


End file.
